The turf grass sod industry holds a preeminent position among grass growers because economies of scale allow for extremely efficient production of the product. Namely, large quantities of turf grass, in the form of a sod mat, can be easily grown, lifted and transported as one unit, and replanted at a remote, secondary location.
Growers of plants other than turf grasses have attempted to emulate the desirable features of grass sod by constructing various sod-like mats to enable their use as a planting medium or to be used as a base for seeding and/or transplanting other plant material. Once the plants are established, the sod-like mats, along with the established plants are intended to thereafter be transported for replanting. However, all plants do not have what is required to enable efficient utilization of the sod-like mats as a planting medium, namely the needed root knitting characteristic exhibited by grass and which imparts the required stability to grass sod. Consequently, in attempts to impart the necessary structural integrity to such simulated mats and to enhance their root knitting ability with the plants thereon, the sod-like mats of the prior art typically include a layer or layers of wood chips and/or other mulch and an underlying layer or layers of synthetic anchoring material such as netting or fabric into which the roots of the seeded and/or transplanted plants can grow and become anchored.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,282 to Milstein requires a polyester fabric sheet underlaying the planting medium. U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,290 to Molnar et al. discloses a nylon spunbonded fabric as the sod reinforcement. U.S. Pat. No. 3,863,388 to Loads uses an inert mesh material as a base for roots to intertwine.
There are several disadvantages to such prior methods: (a) in constructing the mats it is cumbersome, time-consuming, and, therefore, expensive to spread out multiple layers of base material, the sod reinforcement, and then the growing medium; (b) in field growing conditions it is difficult to obtain an even thickness of growing medium; (c) the time period required for root anchoring can vary greatly, depending on environmental conditions and the crop grown, from approximately two (2) months to one (1) year; and (d) the synthetic anchoring material is either not biodegradable or is photodegradable and, in the latter case, most of the material would not degrade, as it is buried.
Therefore, the objects and advantages of the present invention are as follows:
(a) to provide a sod mat which has the advantages of turf grass sod, for establishing plantings of annual and perennial ornamental and/or edible plants and the like, and especially those having an adventitious or fibrous root system; PA1 (b) to provide a sod mat in which the knitted and matted roots of killed grass provide a support or anchoring system for the fibrous roots of such plants; PA1 (c) to provide a sod mat having a support or anchoring system which is biodegradable; PA1 (d) to provide a sod mat which will anchor plant roots rapidly, thereby requiring a shorter time period for the establishment of such plantings; PA1 (e) to provide a sod mat for other plants, the construction and establishment of which is less cumbersome, time consuming and expensive than the sod-like mats of the prior art; PA1 (f) to provide a sod mat which possesses the requisite strength and integrity to withstand handling and transporting, and where such integrity is able to be maintained even when the sod is placed or attached in a substantially vertical position; PA1 (g) to provide a sod mat which eliminates the traditional need of growers and retailers for plant containers, and provides a convenient method of transporting and planting already-established plantings for ornamental purposes; and PA1 (h) to provide a sod mat which can be laid permanently or temporarily for such ornamental purposes.
Other objects and advantages of the subject invention will become apparent after considering the following description and the accompanying drawings.